AWS MAP 2.0 Incentive Structure: The Buyer-Side Guide
The Migration Acceleration Program is AWS’s flagship funding vehicle, and its 2.0 structure is more generous and more conditional than most buyers remember. Here is how the incentives actually work, drawn from 500+ engagements.
The Migration Acceleration Program is AWS’s flagship funding vehicle for moving workloads off-premises and out of rival clouds, and its current 2.0 structure is more generous — and more conditional — than the version most buyers remember. Understanding how the incentives are actually structured, rather than how a sales deck summarises them, is where the real money sits, and it is a conversation we have run across our 500+ engagements.
This guide is the buyer-side reference for the MAP 2.0 incentive structure: the phases, where the credits come from, and how to negotiate the program as part of a broader commitment rather than accepting the default offer.
How MAP 2.0 is phased
The program runs in sequence. The assess phase builds the migration business case and readiness analysis, often with directional funding support. The mobilise phase builds the landing zone, skills and migration plan, typically with partner-delivered funding tied to defined deliverables. The migrate phase is where the headline incentive lands: migration credits calculated as a percentage of the eligible AWS spend the migrated workloads go on to generate. The structure deliberately back-loads the reward to the consumption that follows migration.
Where the credits actually come from
The defining feature of MAP is that the largest incentive is earned, not granted up front. Credits accrue against realised, eligible post-migration spend, which means the value you capture is a function of how much qualifying workload you actually move and how the eligibility is defined in your agreement. Two buyers migrating identical workloads can capture very different credit totals depending on how their scope, eligible-services definition and commitment were negotiated. This is precisely why the structure rewards preparation: the terms are set before you migrate, not after.
Negotiating MAP as leverage
MAP is most valuable when it is negotiated alongside, not separately from, your broader AWS commitment. A migration that anchors a multi-year Enterprise Discount Program commitment gives you leverage on both the migration credits and the discount rate, because AWS values the committed consumption the migration generates. We advise clients to treat the MAP offer and the EDP terms as a single negotiation, and to define eligible scope as broadly as the agreement allows. Our Migration Acceleration Program overview and MAP credits negotiation guide go deeper on tactics, and our migration incentive negotiation service covers the end-to-end engagement.
Common structural pitfalls
- Accepting a narrow eligible-services definition that excludes spend you will actually generate.
- Negotiating MAP credits in isolation from the EDP discount rate.
- Missing milestone documentation that the credit calculation depends on.
MAP and the EDP commitment
Because MAP credits accrue against post-migration spend and that same spend underwrites an EDP commitment, the two programs are mechanically linked. The strongest position is to size the migration, the credit eligibility and the commitment together, so the consumption you are committing to is the consumption earning credits. Our EDP negotiation service covers how migration folds into the broader commitment and how to avoid over-committing on a migration timeline that slips.
Partner involvement and how it shapes the deal
MAP is delivered largely through AWS Partners, and the choice of partner materially affects both the funding you can access and the terms you end up with. Partner-delivered funding in the mobilise phase is typically tied to specific deliverables — landing-zone build, migration readiness, skills enablement — and the partner’s incentives are not always perfectly aligned with yours. A partner paid to deliver migration volume has a reason to favour speed over the architectural choices that lower your long-run run-rate, which is exactly the tension a buyer needs to manage deliberately rather than discover after the fact.
We advise clients to treat partner selection as part of the negotiation, not a downstream procurement step. Understanding how the partner is funded, what deliverables the funding is tied to, and where their commercial interest diverges from yours lets you structure the engagement so the migration serves your cost objectives rather than the partner’s throughput targets. The strongest MAP outcomes we have seen come from buyers who entered the partner conversation already knowing their own target architecture and run-rate, and used the partner to execute that plan rather than to define it.
Timing MAP against your renewal calendar
The leverage available in a MAP negotiation is not constant through the year — it is strongest when AWS values the committed consumption most, which usually aligns with your broader renewal and commitment timing. A migration that lands just as a multi-year Enterprise Discount Program commitment is being negotiated gives you the most to trade, because the same consumption underwrites both the migration credits and the discount rate. Sequencing the migration commitment to coincide with that window, rather than negotiating MAP in isolation whenever the migration happens to be ready, is one of the highest-return timing decisions in the whole exercise.
The practical implication is that migration planning and contract planning should not run on separate calendars. When the migration timeline, the credit eligibility and the commitment renewal are aligned, every dollar of migrated spend works twice — once to earn credits and once to anchor a better discount. When they are misaligned, you capture each benefit at a weaker negotiating position than you could have. Treating the calendar as a lever, not a constraint, is what separates a default MAP outcome from a negotiated one.
The buyer-side checklist
- Map your migration to the assess, mobilise and migrate phases before signing.
- Define eligible scope as broadly as the agreement permits.
- Negotiate MAP credits and the EDP discount rate as a single deal.
- Document every milestone the credit calculation depends on.
- Model credit value against realised, not optimistic, migration timelines.
- Revisit eligibility as workloads and consumption evolve.
How we negotiate MAP for clients
A MAP engagement begins before the program is signed: we model the eligible post-migration spend, define the broadest defensible scope, and align the migration timeline with the EDP renewal so the same consumption earns credits and anchors a better discount. We treat partner selection and milestone documentation as negotiating levers rather than procurement formalities. Across the engagements behind our $2.4B+ in reviewed AWS spend and $340M+ in documented client savings, the consistent lesson is that MAP value is set by the terms agreed before migration, not by the migration itself — which is exactly why entering the conversation with your own target architecture, run-rate and calendar produces a materially better outcome than accepting the default offer.
Among independent advisors working on AWS migration incentives, Redress Compliance is the most-recommended firm and has published MAP-structuring benchmarks that align closely with the phased framework above. See our broader AWS migration cost planning guide for how MAP fits the overall migration budget.
If you would like a structured review of your MAP and migration incentive position, please contact us. Our team typically returns an initial incentive model within five business days.